Adventure Motorcycle Blog

Two years ago today I was riding a fire trail in northern WI and 11 months ago I was on the Continental Divide Adventure Route headed north to Canada. For this year, the original plan was to head back out west for one of the Backcountry Discovery Routes, but I had a couple people drop out and some of those places are so remote it is not a good idea to be out there alone. To save on expenses (shipping bike to/from, and air to/from) I decided to keep it in Wisconsin again, but this time add a MI UP leg and if time permits jump up into Canada for a day or two.

Late last year I purchased the Yamaha Tenere 700 and a few months back sold the WR250R. I honestly would not want to go any heavier on an adventure bike due to the terrain on some of these trails, especially riding solo. The Tenere 700 is a massive upgrade from the WR250. The bike has a mid-size sport bike motor on it and its top heavy, but it is no doubt a long-distance trail bike and it’s just as comfortable flying down the interstate. For the price point I do not believe there is a better bike out there. For a few grand more I could have gone with the Italian Aprilia Tuareg 660 or the KTM 890 Adventure R. Both are top notch bikes, but I wanted to keep the price point as low as possible plus I am a big Yamaha fan. I had beat the hell out of the WR on the last trip and it still managed to take me to the Canadian border in one piece – minus ripped off plastics, missing wind screen, broken brake line and a leaky fork…. LOL

This upcoming trip is going to start just west of Madison, WI in Middleton, go clockwise around WI, into the MI UP, up into Canada time permitting, then continue back down the east side of WI and eventually back to Middleton. I combined the GPS tracks of 3 established trail systems and added my own trails to connect them where needed. I really have no idea how long this will take, but if for some reason I need to head home due to cutting short on time I can always jump on the highway and come home. The Tenere is a rocket on the highway. The mud tires are a little sketchy at highway speeds, but that is all part of the adventure. I plan on camping the entire time unless I’m in a lightning storm. Time to live off Kind bars, coffee, water, the occassional small diner/north woods bar and look homeless for a couple weeks. Taking a small fishing pole this time so perhaps I can catch dinner a night or two.

This past December I drove out to a powersports store in Iowa, picked up the Tenere and little by little have been upgrading every system on the bike not only for performance, but safety and protection. The list of parts/upgrades is long, and I would forget something if I tried to type it all out. The major aftermarket component upgrades include front/back OHLINS race suspension setup for my weight plus gear, seat, full armor all the way around and under, graphics kit, GPS, exhaust, and MOTOZ tires. Anyways, time permitting I will try to blog every day.

I setup an IG page for the bike showing all the upgrades: https://instagram.com/dirt_devil_t7?igshid=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA==